SLU's King earned her way back

By Tom Timmermann

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

03/07/2008

Every season, right before conference play, St. Louis University women's basketball coach Shimmy Gray-Miller asks her players to do a little self-assessment. What's their role with the team? What do they want their role to be?

At the time, SLU forward Heather King was averaging 8 minutes per game in a slow comeback from knee surgery. Her goal, she wrote, was to get back in the starting lineup. When she met with Gray-Miller to discuss her situation, the coach didn't pull any punches.

"The only way you're getting back in the starting lineup," Gray-Miller said, "is if all the other girls go down."

"I swallowed my pride on that one," King remembered.

King won't say she got the last laugh, but she worked her way back into the starting lineup, using energy and brute force to claim a spot. Since then, she has gone on to be one of the top rebounders in the Atlantic 10 Conference (6.4 in A-10 play) and an inside force for the Billikens. In league play, King is third in offensive rebounds at 3.2 per game, even though she's a couple of inches shorter than the 5-foot-11 she's generously listed as.

"I'm proud of Heather," said Gray-Miller, who admits to seeing a lot of herself in King. "She had gotten so far in the doghouse at the beginning of the year. She came back from her injury with a terrible attitude, she came back overweight and out of shape. I was as hard on her as I've been on any player. Instead of crying, complaining or sinking even lower, she went out and worked harder and proved me to be wrong."

At the start of the season, Gray-Miller had told King that while SLU would honor her scholarship for next season, she would not be back on the team. Gray-Miller changed her mind on that one as well. "I didn't give her anything," Gray-Miller said. "She earned it."

King, who is from the Chicago area, originally got back in the starting lineup when Gray-Miller tried to send a message to a struggling Amy Klotz. King was coming off an eight-rebound game against Charlotte, and in her first start since the 2005-06 season, she had seven rebounds and sent a message of her own to Gray-Miller. Against St. Joseph's on Feb. 6, King pulled down 12 rebounds, including six on the offensive boards.

"I know I'm undersized in the post," King said, "but I love guarding girls that are bigger than me. I absolutely love it. … I'm not the most athletic player, I'm not the most talented on offense, but I feel like I get the grit done for the team."

King's play has sent another message to her coach, one that may alter the look of the program in the years ahead.

"Heather has changed the way we're recruiting," Gray-Miller said. "I realize how important it is to have tough kids. We had a kid on our recruiting list who was a taller version of Heather King. She set crushing picks, rebounded and would yell at people. She was farther down on our list because we had some finesse post players ahead of her. Because of Heather, we've moved that kid up past the finesse players and we're going to offer that kid. We're going to see if we can replace Heather with another Heather."